T-Shirts
by PaperFrames
Summary: Time passes slowly in a continuum while she's seated atop the chaos that's become the floor of her bedroom. It's not until a strong pair of arms hoists her upwards and a thick Brooklyn accent hits her ears that she finds herself able to unravel from the ball she's locked herself in. [EO Set Post Surrender Benson, sometime during Imprisoned Lives]


**A/N: This is set post Surrender Benson, during Imprisoned Lives. Just a short drabble of what I wanted to happen when Olivia returned to her apartment. **

**Once again, if you opened this for Scandal, sorry. I see your messages, I know you want to kill me. But in due time. Good things come to those who wait. **

**Disclaimer: I sold my soul to Dick Wolf. In other words - I own nothing, but believe me, I'd love to rescue Olivia Benson for her sad narrative, take her home and spend forever just cuddling and loving her. Though she doesn't really need anyone saving her. She's a complete and utter bad ass on her own. **

* * *

**T-Shirts **

The fabric between her fingers is soft, yet the decal on the baseball t-shirt is worn, rough and faded. The decal that once read 'Sex Crimes' now only reads 'Se Crime' and Olivia can't help but to smile. She picks up the shirt and brings it to her face, and finds comfort in the fact that – surprisingly enough, his scent is still there. She's had the shirt for roughly seven years, and she doesn't think she's ever washed it. Not because she wanted to hang onto his scent, that'd be creepy, but because she'd shoved it into the abyss that'd become the back of her closet. As a hardworking grade 1 detective, Olivia Benson wasn't the neatest woman in the world. She kept up the pretense in her room, and for the most part her visible bedroom, but her closet was a different story. The doors closed; therefore the mess was contained when it came to "public" (aka whatever date she brought home that night) conscious. Sure her dresses hung neatly on coat hangers, along with her blouses and trousers, but the closet floor was something shy of a disaster.

She fingers the fabric once more as a knock on her bedroom door shakes her from her reverie. It's Brian. He's standing there, holding a box.

"Hey babe, I'm gonna go grab a few more boxes. You okay alone?" His gruff voice asks and Olivia feels a pique of annoyance rise in her stomach. Ever since the Lewis incident Brian's been trying not to handle her with kid gloves, which she's appreciative of, but questions like his last one make her blood boil. She's a grown woman who doesn't need a babysitter.

Her brown eyes flit about her destroyed bedroom, the mattress hangs haphazardly off the box spring, the contents of her dresser have been dumped out, and the picture frames, perfume bottles, and knick-knacks that once sat atop her vanity table have been dumped all over the floor. She swallows as a lump rises in her throat and she tries to blink back painful memories of being tied to a chair and listening as Lewis tore through her room, rise to the surface.

"Go Bri, I'm fine." She insists and her grip on the t-shirt tightens. Subconsciously she yearns for the body that used to fill the fabric.

"Kay." He sets the box down on the floor and walks out, leaving Olivia standing in the disaster zone alone.

She tosses the shirt over her shoulder and goes to work, sorting through some of her things on a heap in the floor; picture frames, broken glass, and shredded pillows.

Once she's satisfied with the piles she's made – things that are salvageable, things that aren't – she crosses the room, to her clothes dresser and groans at the pile of underwear, bras, socks, t-shirts, and jeans dumped in front of it. The wood drawers of the cherry oak armoire are busted and turned over. Tears rise to the surface and Olivia sinks to her knees, leaning on the balls of her feet as she begins to separate her garments. Her fingers stop when she comes across an oversize grey NYPD t-shirt, a badge number emblazoned on the cuff of the short sleeve, _6313_.

Olivia knows the badge number better than she knows her own and seeing it again causes something inside of her to crack; she's been so strong for so long, going through the motions. The tears she's tried to keep at bay flood her face and she falls back onto her bum. She grabs the baseball t-shirt flung over her shoulder and the NYPD shirt now in her lap and balls them together, bringing them to her chest and hugging them tightly. It's been just shy of three years since he walked out of her life, and compounded with her recent trauma, it feels only like yesterday.

Lewis's voice crawls into her conscious and she feels like she's being stabbed, gutted from the inside out. _You still want him; I can hear it in your voice._

She's crying, hard, so hard that she has to pull the fabric away from her mouth in order to breathe, but hates doing so because when she does, Elliot disappears all over again. Her eyes are slammed shut and she repeats the phrase '_Yes, I do' _over and over again, barely cognizant that she's talking aloud.

Time passes slowly in a continuum while she's seated atop the chaos that's become the floor of her bedroom. It's not until a strong pair of arms hoists her upwards and a thick Brooklyn accent hits her ears that she finds herself able to unravel from the ball she's locked herself in.

"It's going to be alright, Liv."

"El?" she whispers, opening and closing her eyes, trying to focus through the tears. Her voice sounds foreign to her, small and childlike. "Am I dreaming?"

Strong, thick arms wrap around her and pull her close, rocking her.

"No, Livia. No." The Brooklyn accent grates and he's running a hand through her now short brown locks.

"But you left. You left me." She's hyperventilating, drowning within the familiar-ness of his frame pressed against her, t-shirts still grasped tightly to her chest, as she folds into him.

"I'm here now. For however long you need me. I'm here."

They stay locked together like this for an immeasurable amount of time. Olivia's head tucked into Elliot's chest, his arms around her weary frame, and their bodies swaying ever so slightly. She breathes in his scent and for the first time in months, she exhales.

\\\

Brian stands in the door way and watches the scene before him unfold, saying nothing and making no moves to interfere before he walks away. In the process he holds up Olivia's phone and navigates to her outgoing calls, deleting the last call that reads 'El' from her phone records. He sets her phone down on the bar that separates her living room from her kitchen and walks out.


End file.
